DATE(E)                        FSF                        DATE(E)



NAME
       date - print or set the system date and time

SYNOPSIS
       date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]
       date [-u|--utc|--universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]

DESCRIPTION
       Display  the  current time in the given FORMAT, or set the
       system date.

       -d, --date=STRING
              display time described by STRING, not `now'

       -f, --file=DATEFILE
              like --date once for each line of DATEFILE

       -I, --iso-8601[=TIMESPEC]  output  an  ISO-8601  compliant
       date/time string.
              TIMESPEC=`date'  (or  missing)   for   date   only,
              `hours',  `minutes', or `seconds' for date and time
              to the indicated precision.

       -r, --reference=FILE
              display the last modification time of FILE

       -R, --rfc-822
              output RFC-822 compliant date string

       -s, --set=STRING
              set time described by STRING

       -u, --utc, --universal
              print or set Coordinated Universal Time

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
              output version information and exit

       FORMAT controls the output.  The only valid option for the
       second  form specifies Coordinated Universal Time.  Inter-
       preted sequences are:

       %%     a literal %

       %a     locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)

       %A     locale's full weekday name, variable  length  (Sun-
              day..Saturday)

       %b     locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)

       %B     locale's  full  month  name,  variable length (Jan-
              uary..December)

       %c     locale's date and time (Sat  Nov  04  12:02:33  EST
              1989)

       %d     day of month (01..31)

       %D     date (mm/dd/yy)

       %e     day of month, blank padded ( 1..31)

       %h     same as %b

       %H     hour (00..23)

       %I     hour (01..12)

       %j     day of year (001..366)

       %k     hour ( 0..23)

       %l     hour ( 1..12)

       %m     month (01..12)

       %M     minute (00..59)

       %n     a newline

       %p     locale's AM or PM

       %r     time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)

       %s     seconds  since  `00:00:00  1970-01-01  UTC'  (a GNU
              extension)

       %S     second (00..60)

       %t     a horizontal tab

       %T     time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)

       %U     week number of year with Sunday  as  first  day  of
              week (00..53)

       %V     week  number  of  year  with Monday as first day of
              week (01..53)

       %w     day of week (0..6);  0 represents Sunday

       %W     week number of year with Monday  as  first  day  of
              week (00..53)

       %x     locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)

       %X     locale's time representation (%H:%M:%S)

       %y     last two digits of year (00..99)

       %Y     year (1970...)

       %z     RFC-822  style numeric timezone (-0500) (a nonstan-
              dard extension)

       %Z     time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no  time  zone
              is determinable

       By  default,  date  pads  numeric fields with zeroes.  GNU
       date recognizes the following modifiers between `%' and  a
       numeric directive.

              `-'  (hyphen) do not pad the field `_' (underscore)
              pad the field with spaces

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs to <bug-sh-utils@gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This is free software; see the source for  copying  condi-
       tions.  There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY
       or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO
       The full documentation for date is maintained as a Texinfo
       manual.   If  the  info  and  date  programs  are properly
       installed at your site, the command

              info date

       should give you access to the complete manual.



GNU sh-utils 2.0.11         July 2001                     DATE(E)